J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci.

(2012) 40:807820
DOI 10.1007/s11747-011-0285-y

ORIGINAL EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

Achieving brand loyalty through sponsorship: the role

of fit and self-congruity
Marc Mazodier & Dwight Merunka

Received: 20 February 2011 / Accepted: 22 August 2011 / Published online: 10 September 2011
# Academy of Marketing Science 2011

Abstract Managers increasingly seek to develop brand

loyalty through sponsorship activities, though this relationship
has not been solidly established. This article models and
demonstrates the impact of sponsorship on brand loyalty. The
studied concepts and relationships emerge from both the
sponsorship and consumer-brand relationship literature. The
experimental design relies on before and after measurements
and multiple exposures to the sponsorship. Thus this study
demonstrates that sponsorship exposure has a positive impact
on brand affect, brand trust, and brand loyalty. The change in
brand loyalty from before to after sponsorship exposure
reflects two persuasion processes. First, self-congruity with an
event enhances brand loyalty through event and brand affect.
Second, perceived fit between the event and the brand has a
positive effect on brand affect, through attitude toward the
sponsorship, and on brand trust, such that it ultimately
influences brand loyalty. Brand affect is identified as an
important mediator of sponsorship effects.
Keywords Sponsorship . Brand loyalty . Brand affect .
Brand trust . Self-congruity . Fit
The worldwide sponsorship market was valued at $46.3
billion in 2010, when total spending by U.S. and Canadian
M. Mazodier (*)
ISG Business School,
8 rue de Lota,
75116 Paris, France
e-mail: marc.mazodier@isg.fr
D. Merunka
University Paul Czanne in Aix en Provence (IAE Aix, Cergam)
and Euromed Management in Marseille,
Chemin de la Quille,
13540 Puyricard, France
e-mail: dwight.merunka@iae-aix.com

companies hit $17.2 billion, up from the $14.91 billion in

2007. The range of sponsored activities has increased
steadily, though sports remains the most important area,
garnering 68% of total spending (International Events
Group 2010). The increase in sponsorship activities reflects
the growing awareness that developing a brand through
associations with an event may build brand equity more
effectively than can traditional marketing communications,
such as advertising (Keller 2003). Corporations thus seek to
increase brand equity and revenues by building brand
awareness, brand image, and brand loyalty. However,
whereas the influence of sponsorship activities on brand
awareness and brand image is relatively well established,
their effects on brand loyalty remain uncertain. With this
study, we therefore outline and explain the impact of
sponsorship on an ultimate communication objective,
namely, brand loyalty. Our focus is on sponsorship effects
specifically, not on a comparison of sponsorship and
advertising effects.
As noted, mechanisms and measures to determine the
influence of sponsorship on brand awareness and brand
image are extensive (Dean 1999; Javalgi et al. 1994;
Lardinoit and Derbaix 2001; for a review, see Cornwell
2008), yet we know little about the mechanisms by which
sponsorship influences brand loyalty or the magnitude of
this influence. Both academics and professionals have
called for more research on the effects of sponsorships on
brand loyalty (Cliff and Motion 2005; Cornwell et al.
2001). To the best of our knowledge though, only one study
has explored the impact of sponsorship on brand loyalty
(Sirgy et al. 2008), showing that self-congruity with a
sponsored event has a small and positive influence on
customer loyalty toward the sponsor brand. Even these
results are somewhat inconsistent though, because no effect
emerges for two of the five samples in that study. Although
Sirgy and colleagues offer an important initial consideration

808

of sponsorship effects on brand loyalty, their cross-sectional

study contains only one antecedent of loyalty (i.e., selfcongruity) and cannot reveal the mechanisms through
which sponsorship influences brand loyalty. We aim to
address this gap.
Furthermore, we note the many constructs identified in
prior sponsorship literature that influence consumer reactions to sponsorships, such as brand-event fit (Rifon et al.
2004; Speed and Thompson 2000), affect toward the event
(Crimmins and Horn 1996; Speed and Thompson 2000),
and attitude toward the sponsorship (Meenaghan 2001;
Quester and Thompson 2001). Research has established
sponsorship effects on outcomes such as brand affect and
purchase intent (Cornwell 2008), though not brand loyalty
(cf. Sirgy et al. 2008). Olson (2010) even highlights that
most sponsorship research remains focused on a limited
number of causal relationships; thus there is a need for
comprehensive models with several causal relationships to
understand and explain sponsorship effects more fully.
Beyond sponsorship literature, research has revealed that
brand affect and brand trust influence brand commitment
and loyalty (Chaudhuri and Holbrook 2001; Dick and Basu
1994; Kim et al. 2008). Therefore, we build on established
relationships from both sponsorship literature and
consumer-brand relationship research to extend previous
models of sponsorship effects.
In so doing, we fill two critical gaps in the sponsorship
literature. First, we seek to demonstrate the causality
between sponsorship and brand loyalty in a realistic setting
and to model the process, such that we enable a better
understanding of the effects of a brands event sponsorship
on consumer loyalty to that brand. Second, we show that
consumers self-congruity with the event and perceptions of
the fit between the sponsor and the event help explain the
impact of sponsorship on brand loyalty. The first process
suggests an affective transfer from the event to the
sponsored brand, which influences brand loyalty. The
second process influences both brand affect, through
attitude toward sponsorship, and brand trust, which in turn
exert impacts on brand loyalty. Brand affect appears
therefore to be an important mediating variable of sponsorship effects on brand loyalty.
In the remainder of this article, we review key concepts
from the sponsorship and consumer-brand relationship
literature to build our conceptual model of the impact of
sponsorship on brand loyalty. With this theoretical foundation, we formulate a set of hypotheses that describe the
relationships among the model constructs. We then detail
our experimental study, based on a major sporting event
(Olympic Games), which we conducted to test our model of
sponsorship effects on brand loyalty. Finally, we provide the
research results, limitations, and directions for further
research.

J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2012) 40:807820

Main concepts and research hypotheses

We define commercial sponsorship as an investment, in
cash or kind, in an event, person, or idea for the purpose of
exploiting the commercial potential of this association
(Meenaghan 1983). The main communication objectives
of sponsorships are to increase brand awareness and
improve brand image or consumer attitudes toward the
brand. Other objectives may include motivating personnel
or building closer relationships with partners (e.g., suppliers,
customers, prospective customers) (Erikson and Kushner
1999). Most sponsorship research therefore concentrates on
modeling and understanding the process by which sponsorships help firms achieve their communication objectives
(Cornwell et al. 2005), according to three main mechanisms:
congruence between the sponsor and the event, signaling
theory, and affect transfer. These theories underlie our
proposed conceptual model as well, in which we predict
that sponsor-event congruence and self-congruency with the
event influence brand affect, brand trust, and thus ultimately
brand loyalty.
Sponsor-event congruence
Sponsor-event congruence (or fit)1 increases sponsorship
efficiency. Speed and Thompson (2000, p. 230) define this
construct as the degree to which the pairing [of an event
and sponsor] is perceived as well matched or a good fit,
without any restriction on the basis used to establish fit.
Sponsorship research also has adopted a consumer-based
conceptualization of congruence, as in the brand extension
literature (Aaker and Keller 1990), such that the perception
by spectators or participants determines the degree to which
sponsors and the event match, belong to the same world, or
seem likely to engage in joint business or communication
efforts. In the endorsement literature, the match-up hypothesis
also suggests that a strong fit between an endorser and a
product type creates favorable attitudes toward the endorsed
brand (Kamins 1990; Till et al. 2008). Sponsor-event fit thus
represents a key influence on consumer responses to
sponsorship.
The composition of a sponsor-event pair provides a
natural form of congruity or incongruity that influences
attitudes; it is important primarily because of its implications for partner selection and its influence on consumer
relationships with the brand. Sponsorships with high fit are
consistent with consumers expectations of the firm.
Therefore, they increase the likelihood that spectators can
identify the correct sponsor (Johar and Pham 1999; Johar et
1
Similar to most research in sponsorship (Simmons and Becker-Olsen
2006; Speed and Thompson 2000), we use the terms congruence and
fit interchangeably in this research.

J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2012) 40:807820

al. 2006), encourage positive brand attitudes (Becker-Olsen

and Simmons 2002; Gwinner and Eaton 1999; Roy and
Cornwell 2003), augment purchase intentions (Olson and
Thjomoe 2009), and increase brand equity (Olson 2010;
Simmons and Becker-Olsen 2006). Sponsorships with low
fit instead make negative associations more accessible;
through attitude priming (Fazio and Williams 1986;
Houston and Fazio 1989), this negative affect is likely to
engender other negative thoughts and result in an unfavorable attitude toward the sponsorship by that brand.
However, Olson and Thjomoe (2009), using realistic
sponsorship stimuli, and Trendel and Warlop (2005), using
implicit measures, demonstrate that low fit sponsors
actually may benefit from stronger identification than do
high fit sponsors. Because people find some incongruence
interesting, such low fit could generate positive effects
(Meyers-Levy and Tybout 1989), particularly if spectators
view the sponsorship as philanthropic (DAstous and Bitz
1995), consider the sponsored event important and significant (Speed and Thompson 2000), or regard the association as funny and creative and if they exhibit a high need
for cognition (Masterson 2005).
Faced with these conflicting results, we follow the
dominant findings: Simmons and Becker-Olsen (2006)
and Olson (2010) show that high fit sponsorships lead to
more favorable attitudes. Meenaghan (2001) also proposes
that sponsorship intervenes in the emotional relationship
between consumers and the event. When consumers
perceive the association between a sponsor and an event
as congruent, they tend to assume a goodwill motivation
and build positive feelings toward the brand. We predict:
H1: Perceived fit between the brand and the event relates
positively to attitude toward the sponsorship by the
brand.
Following Chaudhuri and Holbrook (2001), we define
brand affect as the positive emotional feelings of consumers
toward the brand. Accordingly, positive attitudes toward the
brand, which are the consequences of the perceived fit
between the event and the brand, result in higher brand
affect. Olson (2010) demonstrates the positive relationship
between attitude toward the sponsorship and sponsor equity,
which represents the strongest relationship in his model.
Two of the three measures of sponsor equity are positive
feelings toward the brand and brand overall liking, both of
which link to brand affect. We therefore include brand affect
in our model as a generally strong predictor of brand
loyalty. It thus follows that:
H2: Attitude toward the sponsorship relates positively to
brand affect.
Brand trust is another well-established determinant of
brand loyalty (Ganesan and Hess 1997; Morgan and Hunt

809

1994). This form of trust refers to consumers expectations

about the brands reliability in a risky situation or willingness
to rely on the brand to perform its stated functions
(Chaudhuri and Holbrook 2001; Delgado-Ballester et al.
2003). Trust comprises three dimensions that reflect consumers beliefs about the brands integrity, benevolence, and
competence (Ganesan and Hess 1997; Schlosser et al. 2006).
Furthermore, signaling theory suggests that sponsorship
influences brand trust (Inman 1995; Kirmani and Rao 2000;
Kirmani and Wright 1989; Spence 1973). That is, extrinsic
marketing cues influence consumers brand expectations.
Consumers encode the information provided by marketers
to form their beliefs about the company or brand, which
then evoke a tentative inference that enables consumers to
move beyond the information provided. In a sponsorship
context, event-specific factors such as the size of the event
may offer cues that influence consumers beliefs about
sponsors. For example, Clark et al. (2002) suggest that a
sponsorship effectively signals manufacturing ability and
financial stability; companies seemingly should not be able to
sustain a high-level sponsorship deal unless they have
appropriate financial resources, earned through market success. Market success in turn might signal quality, brand
trustworthiness, and the presence of satisfied consumers.
Therefore, sponsorship may be a good signal of the ability of
the brand to meet its obligations, especially when the
sponsorship is consistent with what consumers expect of the
firm (i.e., high fit between the event and the brand). The
brands perceived ability to meet its obligations then is linked
to perceptions of the brands competence and benevolence.
Sponsor-event fit also implies that spectators or participants
believe a brand would be likely to sponsor the event, which
should send a signal of the brands integrity, defined as the
brands honesty and adherence to a set of moral principles
(Mayer et al. 1995). Sponsoring an incongruent event instead
might signal that the brand is pursuing a hidden agenda or is
not honest in its support of the event or its expression of core
values. Low sponsor-event fit thus could represent ambiguous information that creates confusion among consumers and
limits their commitment to or trust in the brand (Dhar 1997).
Moreover, this unexpected information could decrease
perceptions of brand predictability, an important predictor
of trust (Hurley 2006; Vanhonacker 2007).
H3: High perceived fit between the brand and the
sponsored event relates positively to brand trust.
Consumers self-congruity with the sponsored event
Consumers often purchase goods to express their identity
(e.g., Aaker 1996; Aaker 1997; Malhotra 1981, 1988) and
thus might evaluate brands or events according to the match
between their symbolic attributes and the consumers own

810

self-concept. This matching process is referred to as selfcongruity (Sirgy 1985). Self-congruity plays an important
role in both pre- and post-purchase behaviors (Johar and
Sirgy 1991), and according to self-congruity theory, a match
between the brand and the consumers self-image arises
when a value-expressive brand triggers the consumers selfschema, which contains self-knowledge related to the
products perceived image (Sirgy 1985). However some
studies offer inconsistent findings regarding the selfcongruity hypothesis (Barone et al. 1999; Dolich 1969;
Hugues and Guerrero 1971).
Sirgy et al. (2008) have extended self-image congruence
research to a corporate sponsorship context by demonstrating
that the relationship between corporate sponsorship and brand
loyalty is mediated by self-congruity with a sponsorship
event. Also, self-congruity with a brand positively influences
brand affect (Fournier 1998; Johar and Sirgy 1991; Sirgy et
al. 1991). By analogy, we posit that self-congruity with an
event encourages a favorable affective attitude toward the
event. It follows that:
H4: Customers self-congruity with a sponsored event has
a positive influence on their affect toward that event.
Sponsorship also offers a prominent tool for leveraging
the brand (Keller 2003; Roy and Cornwell 2003; Ruth and
Simonin 2003). The process of association enables brands
to borrow the equity of other entities through knowledge
transfers (e.g., attitudes, thoughts, images, feelings, awareness, experience) (Keller 2003). The transfer process might
reflect Heiders (1958) balance theory, which claims that
people prefer a balanced state in their lives. Dalakas and
Levin (2005, p. 91) also assert that individuals will tend to
like whatever is associated with what they already like and
will tend to dislike whatever is associated with what they
already dislike; otherwise, there will not be balance. This
supposition also relates to the confirmation bias; that is,
once positive attitudes toward a brand have been generated,
consumers act to sustain those positive attitudes (McKenzie
2006; Raghunatham et al. 2006). Alternatively, Speed and
Thompson (2000) use classical conditioning to explain how
affect toward an event transfers to the sponsor. Pairing a
brand with a positive affective stimulus (e.g., the event)
invokes an evaluative conditioning procedure (De Houwer
2009), such that the brand benefits from the positive
affective stimulus (Sweldens et al. 2010). Therefore, the
more a consumer likes a sponsored event, the more he or
she generates positive affect toward the sponsoring brand.
The sponsorship that links the brand to the event in turn
should facilitate the transfer of positive affect from the
event to the sponsor. Therefore:
H5: Affect toward the event relates positively to brand
affect.

J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2012) 40:807820

Determinants of brand loyalty

We have proposed thus far that sponsorship influences
brand affect and brand trust through different processes.
Because the goal of our model is to explain the impact of
sponsorship on brand loyalty, we next relate brand trust and
affect to brand loyalty, according to Chaudhuri and
Holbrooks (2001) model, in which both brand trust and
brand affect positively relate to brand loyalty (purchase and
attitudinal loyalty). Brand trust and affect also are wellestablished determinants of brand commitment, purchase
intentions, and brand loyalty (e.g., Ganesan and Hess 1997;
Morgan and Hunt 1994; Sirgy et al. 1991; Thomson et al.
2005). To extend knowledge about sponsorship effects
beyond attitudes and encompass brand loyalty, we therefore
assume parallel findings about purchase loyalty and
propose:
H6: Brand affect relates positively to brand loyalty.
H7: Brand trust relates positively to brand loyalty.
We outline our proposed model and hypotheses in Fig. 1.

Method
We study the effects of exposure to sponsorship on brand
loyalty using a repeated measures experiment, conducted
with real sponsorships. The event we study is the 2008
Summer Olympics, a well-known, widely visible event
with a very positive image for heterogeneous audiences
(Stipp 1998). Because we are interested in the impact of the
fit between the event and the brand on brand loyalty, we
investigated different levels of fit and included two
disparate brands in our study: one congruent with the
image of the event and one perceived as less congruent. We
conducted the study in January 2009, five months after the
Summer Olympics. We measured all constructs (brandevent fit, self-congruity, event affect, attitude towards the
sponsorship, brand affect, brand trust, and brand loyalty)
using scales available in the literature. All scale items
appear in Table 1.
Pretests
We first needed to select two brand sponsors for the
experiment that provoked similar levels of brand attitude,
so we could control for prior brand attitude effects.
Information integration theory (Anderson 1981) states that
attitudes shift as people receive, evaluate, and integrate
stimulus information with their existing attitudes. In turn,
we looked for a pair of equally liked brands with different
levels of fit, such that one brand would be perceived, on
average, as more congruent with the Olympics than the

J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2012) 40:807820

811

Fig. 1 Conceptual model

Self-congruity
with the Event

H4

H5

Event
Affect

Brand
Affect

H6

H2
H1
Fit
Event/Brand

Attitude toward
the Sponsorship

Brand
Loyalty

H7
H3
Brand
Trust

other. We ran a pretest with 50 students to identify these

brands, in which we first asked respondents which brands
sponsored the 2008 Summer Olympics. McDonalds, CocaCola, Adidas, Samsung, and Visa were recalled as sponsors
by more than 30% of the study participants. In a second
pretest, again with 50 students, we measured brand affect,
brand loyalty, self-congruity, and fit between each of these
five brands and the Olympics. Three brands (McDonalds,
Samsung, and Visa) were perceived to offer low fit with the
Olympics (M<3.0 on a five-point scale), whereas two
brands (Coca-Cola and Adidas) provoked perceptions of
high fit (M>3.0). We chose two brands with similar levels
of brand affect, namely, Adidas and Samsung. Consumers
equally liked Adidas and Samsung (M=3.32 and 3.17,
respectively; p>.05), and the fit with the Olympics was
higher for Adidas than for Samsung (M=3.16 and 2.88,
respectively).
We next conducted a test of the model using Adidas and
Samsung. Their actual sponsorship of the 2008 Summer
Olympics renders the experiment very realistic and enables
us to use real advertising messages, run by the brands
during the Olympics, to stimulate participants responses.
The experiment therefore approximates reality in terms
of the event (Summer Olympics), sponsoring brands
(Samsung and Adidas), and brand communications
(print ads from the sponsors) (Fig. 2).
Procedure
We used convenience sampling to recruit Adidas and
Samsung consumers through e-mail invitations to approximately 850 potential participants (alumni and students
from two French business schools), which asked them to
participate in a short, anonymous, academic study about
marketing and consumer behavior in general. We also
encouraged them to forward the e-mail invitation to
relatives and friends, to achieve a snowball sampling
procedure. Snowball sampling is a common used technique

for both qualitative and quantitative research (Frankwick et

al. 1994; He and Li 2011). Although snowball sampling has
the limitation of being prone to bias of sample representation, it enabled recruiting a large sample of Adidas and
Samsung customers with study participants diverse in age,
occupations and gender. We stopped contacting people
when 600 consumers of Adidas or Samsung had
indicated they were willing to participate. We defined
four groups: an experimental group designed to reveal
effects linked to the Adidas sponsorship, an experimental group designed to reveal Samsung sponsorship
effects, a control group to compare Adidas sponsorship
effects with participants not exposed to the Adidas
sponsorship, and a similar control group for Samsung.
We randomly assigned study participants to the two
experimental groups (200 for Adidas and 200 for
Samsung), leaving 200 participants for the two control
groups (100 for Adidas and 100 for Samsung).
All data were collected online in three sequential steps
(Table 2). First, we collected measures of the concepts that
we included in the theoretical model. Second, we showed
respondents advertisements for several brands, including
the two experimental sponsor brands. Third, we measured
once more the dependent variables (brand affect, brand
trust, and brand loyalty) after participants exposure to the
sponsors ads.
The measures of brand-related concepts for the four
different brand conditions featured either Adidas or Samsung; we also considered event-related concepts (selfcongruity, event affect, attitude toward the sponsorship,
fit). In subsequent days, the experimental groups received
three Internet links, one at a time, every 3 or 4 days. Each
link connected to a different slideshow with four photographs from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games (e.g.,
athletes performing, pictures from the opening ceremony
in the national stadium) to prime their consideration of the
event. None of these pictures featured sponsor logos. The
photographs were followed by four print ads by official

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J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2012) 40:807820

Table 1 Measurement scales

Constructs (sources): items

Type

Fit (Speed and Thompson 2000)

Likert

The image of the event and the image of the sponsor are similar.
It makes sense to me that this company sponsors this event
The sponsor and the event fit together well.
Self-congruity (adapted from Sirgy et al. 1997, 2008)
I feel like I am part of the [event] family.
People who watch [event] are very different from me.
Watching [event] reflects who I am.
Event affect (adapted from Chaudhuri and Holbrook 2001)
I feel good when I watch [event].
This [event] makes me happy.
[Event] is an event that I like.
Attitude toward sponsorship (Simmons and Becker-Olsen 2006)
Negative/positive
Unfavorable/favorable
Bad/good
Brand affect (Chaudhuri and Holbrook 2001)
I feel good when I use [brand].
This [brand] makes me happy.

SD = semantic differential

This [brand] gives me pleasure.

Brand trust (Chaudhuri and Holbrook 2001)
I trust this brand.
This is an honest brand.
This brand is safe.
Brand loyalty (adapted from Chaudhuri and Holbrook 2001; Johnson et al. 2006)
I will buy this brand the next time I buy [product category].
I intend to keep purchasing this brand.
If I got any [product category] for free, I would choose this brand.

sponsors of the 2008 Beijing Olympics (Adidas, Samsung,

Coca-Cola, and McDonalds) and four unrelated print ads
(Apple, Nike, Ford, and Mennen). The ads from the sponsors
naturally included the 2008 Beijing Olympics logo. We used
real ads but standardized the sizes of the Olympic Game logo
across all ads. The order of the Olympic Games photographs
and ads was random across study participants. The control
group (n=200) viewed the same slideshows, except without
the ads by Adidas and Samsung.
Three days after they viewed the last slideshow, participants who had seen all three slideshows indicated again their
brand affect, brand trust, and brand loyalty toward Adidas or
Samsung. Of the 844 people we initially contacted, 449
completed all the steps of the procedure and provided useable
responses. The final sample sizes were 300 for the experimental conditions (147 for Adidas, 153 for Samsung) and 149
for the control group. Since the study implied five successive
contacts with the respondents, the online approach was
considered suitable. Several studies show the reliable response

Item
loadings

.88
.85
.89
Likert
.89
.91
.90
Likert
.89
.92
.91
SD
.91
.91
.92
Likert
.84
.89
.90
Likert
.95
.93
.95
Likert
.95
.96
.94

quality of online surveys (Cobanoglu et al. 2001; Deutskens

et al. 2006; Knapp and Kirk 2003).
The sample included 50.6% women. In terms of age,
27.8% of the participants were between 15 and 34 years,
49.7% were between 35 and 44 years, and 22.5% were
older than 44 years. Furthermore, 56.1% were white-collar
workers, and 19.2% were students. To confirm the
comparability of the experimental groups with the control
group, we conducted chi-square tests on the demographic
variables (gender, occupation, and age). No significant
differences emerged for any of the variables. We also tested
the psychometric properties of the scales and examined the
distinctiveness of the variables using confirmatory analysis
with AMOS 17.0 and maximum likelihood estimation. For
all scales, the factor loadings were significant (p<.01), in
support of convergent validity. The Cronbachs alphas were
at least .90, which demonstrated good reliability. We also
confirmed discriminant validity, because the average
variance extracted exceeded the square of the correla-

J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2012) 40:807820

813

Fig. 2 Adidas and Samsung

advertisements for the 2008
Summer Olympics

tions between constructs (Fornell and Larcker 1981), as

we detail in Table 3.

Adidas (M=4.21) as more congruent with the Olympics

than Samsung (M=3.84; F=21.85, p=.000).
Direct effects of exposure to sponsorship

Results
We began by confirming the difference in fit between the
two brands in the main study. The respondents perceived

We checked the effect of the manipulation on sponsorship

awareness and found that 70% of the participants in the
experimental groups recalled spontaneously both Adidas

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J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2012) 40:807820

Table 2 Study procedure

(F=4.07, p<.05). A repeated measures ANOVA with one

within-subject factor (before and after sponsorship), conducted
only with the control group, shows no significant results for
brand affect, trust, or loyalty (p>.05), whereas the repeated
measures ANOVA for the experimental group reveals significant increases in brand affect (F=6.63, p<.01), brand trust
(F=128.79; p=.000), and brand loyalty (F=24.94; p=.000).
When we compare the pre-treatment measures of brand affect,
trust, and loyalty, as expected, we find no significant differences between the experimental group and the control group
(p>.05). Specifically, for the control and experimental groups,
the mean scores are, respectively, 8.89 and 8.91 for brand
affect, 7.09 and 7.37 for brand trust, and 6.69 and 6.90 for
brand loyalty. After exposure to the sponsorship though, the
experimental groups mean brand affect rises to 9.41, brand
trust to 9.13, and brand loyalty to 8.01 (all differences
significant at p=.01), and there are no significant differences
in the control groups, as we show in Table 4.
In the Adidas and Samsung ads, only the 2008 Summer
Olympics logo (and one tagline for Samsung) differentiates
these sponsors ads from other ads used during the
Olympics. Therefore, there is a risk that the sponsorship
effects might be confounded with advertising effects. To test
the differential effect of sponsorship versus nonsponsorship ads on brand loyalty, we conducted a
between-subjects experiment, in which we randomly
exposed 120 undergraduate students to the three Adidas
ads used in the prior experiment (n=30), three parallel
Adidas ads without any Summer Olympics elements (n=
31), the three Samsung ads from the prior experiment (n=
27), and three parallel Samsung ads without any Summer
Olympics elements (n=32). The respondents exposed to
ads with the 2008 Summer Olympics logo represent the
sponsorship group, whereas we refer to respondents
exposed to the ads without any elements from the Olympics
as the advertising group. Using the same scale as in the
main study, we measured brand loyalty before and after the
respondents exposure to the ads; we also measured
attitudes toward the ads after their exposure with four items
adopted from Holbrook and Batra (1987). These scales and
stimuli appeared in another questionnaire, designed for a

Measurement of all study variables (Time 1)

Brand-related concepts:
Brand affect, brand trust, brand loyalty

Event-related concepts:
Fit, self-congruity, attitude toward sponsorship of the event,
event affect

Manipulation

Exposure to slideshow 1: (Time 13 days)

Pictures from the Olympics, ads from sponsors and unrelated brands

Exposure to slideshow 2: (Time 17 days)

Pictures from the Olympics, ads from sponsors and unrelated brands

Exposure to slideshow 3: (Time 110 days)

Pictures from the Olympics, ads from sponsors and unrelated brands
Repeated measures of brand-related variables (Time 2)

Brand affect, brand trust, brand loyalty (Time 1+14 days)

and Samsung as Olympic sponsors after their exposure to

the slideshows; only 21.5% of the respondents in the
control groups did so (=95.217; p=.000). We then tested
the effects of exposure to the Adidas and Samsung
sponsorships on the dependent variables (brand affect,
brand trust, and brand loyalty) using a repeated measures
analysis of variance (ANOVA) with one within-subject
factor (before and after sponsorship) and one betweensubjects factor (experimental versus control group). Noting
the convergent validity of the measurements, we summed
the scores of the relevant items to form overall indices of
brand affect, brand trust, brand loyalty, fit, self-congruity,
event affect, and attitude toward sponsorship. The betweensubjects factor (experimental versus control group) interacts
with the impact of sponsorship on brand affect (F=5.21,
p<.05), brand trust (F=39.95; p=.000), and brand loyalty

Table 3 Psychometric properties

of the scales

= Cronbachs alpha,
AVE = average variance
extracted

AVE

1. Fit
2. Self-congruity
3. Event affect

.93
.94
.95

4.
5.
6.
7.

.90
.93
.94
.94

Attitude toward sponsorship

Brand affect
Brand trust
Brand loyalty

.59
.66
.75

1.00
.05
.18

1.00
.51

1.00

.55
.67
.71
.72

.37
.15
.22
.18

.34
.32
.01
.27

.27
.39
.01
.27

1.00
.33
.15
.36

1.00
.24
.45

1.00
.24

1.00

J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2012) 40:807820

815

Table 4 Direct effects of Olympic sponsorship on brand affect, brand trust, and brand loyalty
Affect

Whole sample (N=449)

Experimental group (N=300)
Control group (N=149)
Difference between experimental and control groups

Trust

Loyalty

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

8.90
8.91
8.89
F=.01
p=.954

9.15
9.41a
8.63
F=7.09
p=.008

7.18
7.09
7.37
F=1.24
p=.266

8.60a
9.13a
7.55
F=81.06
p=.000

6.83
6.90
6.69
F=.76
p=.383

7.69a
8.01a
7.06
F=9.24
p=.003

Significant increase between before and after exposure to sponsorship (p<.05)

separate research project unrelated to sponsorship and sport

events. Various tasks (questions and manipulations)
appeared between the two brand loyalty measures, which
were identical for all groups. We also measured involvement in the event as a control variable at the end of the
questionnaire. All the scales exhibit excellent reliability
(Cronbachs alpha>.94). To verify comparability between
the groups, we conducted ANOVAs and compared the
means for involvement, pre-treatment measures of loyalty,
and attitude toward the ads. We find no significant differences across the four groups for any variables (p>.05).
Next, a repeated measures ANOVA featured one withinsubject factor (before and after exposure) and one betweensubjects factor (sponsorship versus advertising group). The
between-subjects factor interacted with the impact of the
ads on brand loyalty (F=7.021, p<.01). Another repeated
measures ANOVA with one within-subject factor (before
and after ads), conducted with only the advertising group,
was significant in terms of brand loyalty (F=9.706, p<.01),
but the repeated measures ANOVA with the sponsorship
group revealed a greater increase (F=37.95, p=.000). That
is, our results indicate that sponsorship increases brand
loyalty more than does advertising, which supports that the
study tests mainly sponsorship effects as communicated
through ads.
In the main experiment, we included brand as a betweensubjects factor in repeated measures (Adidas/Samsung); it
interacted with the sponsorships impact on brand affect (F=
13.36, p=.000) but not with brand trust or loyalty (p>.05).
Therefore, we tested the model and hypotheses with the
aggregate experimental sample, using the brand affect, brand
trust, and brand loyalty measures collected after respondents
exposure to the sponsorship ads.
Structural model testing
To estimate the relationships in the model, we used
structural equation modeling with AMOS 17.0 and maximum likelihood estimation. Because previous research
confirms the correlations between brand affect and brand

trust (Chaudhuri and Holbrook 2001), we allowed for this

correlation between residuals in the structural model.
The hypothesized, fully mediated model indicated a
strong fit of the data to the model: (181) = 450.877
(p=.000), confirmatory fit index [CFI]=.967, normed fit
index [NFI]=.947, root mean squared error of approximation [RMSEA]=.058. The estimates of the structural path
model appear in Fig. 3. The R-square values for latent
endogenous variables were .30 for event affect, .16 for
attitude toward sponsorship, .19 for brand affect, .05 for brand
trust, and .23 for brand loyalty.
Hypotheses testing
The high fit between the event and the brand indicates that
respondents have favorable attitudes toward the sponsorship
(=.38; p<.001), in support of H1. Attitude toward the
sponsorship has a positive influence on brand affect (=.28;
p<.001), in support of H2. We also find support for H3,
because fit has a positive impact on brand trust (=.17;
p<.001). Because the more positive attitudes toward Adidas
ads than toward Samsung ads also could explain the positive
effect of fit (i.e., Adidas is perceived as more congruent with
the Olympics), we measured attitudes toward the ads for
both brands in a study on a sample of 57 undergraduate
students. Results indicate no significant difference in their
attitudes toward the ads (p>.05) enabling to rule out this
possible explanation of results found for H1 and H3.
In H4, we posit that high customer self-congruity
with the sponsored event exerts a positive influence on
event affect; in support of our prediction, this path is
positive and significant ( = .48; p < .001). Also in
support of H5, event affect has a positive impact on brand
affect (=.31; p<.001). Finally, we find support for H6
and H7, because brand affect (=.48; p<.001) and brand
trust (=.22; p<.01) positively relate to brand loyalty.
We also tested the proposed structural model and the
hypotheses for each brand separately. For both Adidas and
Samsung, the overall fit statistics demonstrate acceptable
model fit ((181) =315.811, p=.000, CFI=.966, NFI=.925

816

J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2012) 40:807820

Fig. 3 Model and path estimates

Self-congruity
with the Event

+.48*

+.31*

Event
Affect

Brand
Affect

+.48*

+.28*
Fit
Event/Brand

+.38*
Attitude toward
the Sponsorship

Brand
Loyalty

+.11*

+.22*
+.17*

Brand
Trust

*p < .01.

RMSEA=.058; and (181) =411.332, p=.000, CFI=.950,

NFI=.914, RMSEA=.075, respectively). All the hypothesized paths remain significant and in the hypothesized
directions. However, the hypothesized model provides a
better fit with the Adidas data, because Adidas is perceived
as more congruent with the Olympics.
Studies that rely on structural equation modeling should
test alternative models to confirm support for a proposed
model (e.g., Bollen and Long 1992; Thompson 2000).
Therefore, we tested a partially mediated model (i.e., with
paths from each initial variable to each outcome variable)
and compared it with the baseline model in terms of chisquare differences (e.g., Bentler and Bonnet 1980). The
statistics indicate a good fit of the partial mediation model
with the data, with (176) =414.327 (p=.000), CFI=.971,

NFI=.951, and RMSEA=.055. The partially mediated

model fits the data better ([5] =36.53, p<.001; see
Table 5). Furthermore, the hypothesized paths remain
significant and positive. The added direct paths from selfcongruity to brand affect and from attitude toward
sponsorship to brand loyalty are significant. We discuss
these direct effects further in the Discussion section.
Common method variance
Examining causal relationships with data from the same
source may produce biased results, leaving empirical tests
of the hypotheses potentially meaningless. Podsakoff et al.
(2003) warn that artificial covariances between theoretically
related variables may result when the same respondent

Table 5 Mediation tests

Path modeled

Partial mediation

Coefficient

t-Value

Coefficient

t-Value

.48*
.38*
.31*
.28*
.17*
.48*
.22*

12.35
8.03
7.83
5.26
4.58
9.08
2.96

.48*
.38*
.24*
.24*
.16*
.36*
.20*
.11*
.01
.01
.32*
.06

12.29
8.02
5.07
4.01
4.43
6.35
2.67
2.63
.14
.15
4.87
1.43

(181) =450.9

p=.000

.967
.947
.058

(176) =414.3
.971
.951
.055

p=.000

CFI
NFI
RMSEA

Self-congruity
Fit
Event affect
Att. sp.
Fit
Brand affect
Brand trust
Self-congruity
Fit
Fit
Att. sp.
Event affect
Overall fit

* p<.01

Base model

Event affect
Att. sp.
Brand affect
Brand affect
Brand trust
Brand loyalty
Brand loyalty
Brand affect
Brand affect
Brand loyalty
Brand loyalty
Brand loyalty

J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2012) 40:807820

provides data for both the predictor variables and the

criterion variables. Accordingly, we followed their recommendations to address this issue. First, we separated the
predictor and criterion variables sections in the survey
questionnaires, ensured respondent confidentiality, and used
a two-wave data collection procedure that separated the
measures of the exogenous variables (fit, attitude toward
sponsorship, self-congruity, event affect) from those of the
endogenous variables (brand affect, brand trust, brand
loyalty). Second, because we measured fit, attitude toward
sponsorship, self-congruity, and event affect with selfreports provided at Time 1, then measured brand affect,
brand trust, and brand loyalty with self-reports provided at
Time 2, we investigated a single-factor model with all the
measures as indicators (Harmans single-factor test). This
test reveals a very poor fit to the data ((189) =6093.932,
p=.000, CFI=.283, NFI=.278, RMSEA=.264). Third, we
tested the hypothesized model with an additional latent
common method factor (LCMF) on which every item in
the model was allowed to load (in addition to loading on
its respective construct). This model results in a better fit
((160) =370.663, p=.000), though none of the standardized path coefficients between the latent factors is affected
significantly. Ten of the 21 loadings on the LCMF are
significant, but the indicator loadings on their theoretical
factors all remain significant. In summary, we find some
evidence of common method variance bias but not enough
to explain the relationships observed (Piercy et al. 2006).

Discussion
Key findings
From a managerial standpoint, our findings indicate that
sponsorship has a positive influence on brand trust and
brand loyalty; these are key empirical findings, considering
the importance of marketing budgets devoted to sponsorship. Our research reveals changes in brand trust and brand
loyalty before and after event sponsorship for two major
brands in different categories (Adidas and Samsung).
Furthermore, the model offers a better understanding of
the process by which brand loyalty is influenced by
sponsorship activities. We confirm the important roles of
self-congruity (between the consumer and the event) and of
the fit between the event and the brand, which influence
affect toward the event and attitude toward the sponsorship
by the brand, respectively. Self-congruity and eventbrand
fit are both managerially relevant and actionable, and the
relationships uncovered highlight the managerial importance of choosing a sponsorship event that is favored by or
congruent with target consumers, as well as perceived by
the target consumers as congruent with the brands own

817

image or personality. Furthermore, affect toward the event

and attitude toward the sponsorship are easily measurable
concepts from an empirical standpoint, even before the
brand chooses from among its different sponsorship
alternatives. The impact of these concepts on brand affect,
brand trust, and ultimately brand loyalty indicates that
simple market research studies to measure these variables
among target consumers will be beneficial for sponsorship
decision making and budget allocation. The results also
suggest that the sponsorship effects may be short-lived
since the control group potentially exposed to the sponsorship during the Olympics shows significant lower brand
loyalty toward the actual sponsors few months after the
2008 Summer Olympics. In order to increase brand loyalty, it
may be more efficient to sponsor one event that happens
regularly compared to one event that occurs every 4 years.
More longitudinal research is needed to test this assumption.
From an academic standpoint, our model is one of the
first to elaborate on brand sponsorships and attempt to
explain brand loyalty. It explains 23% of the variance in
brand loyalty; Sirgy et al. (2008) were able to explain less
than 1% of that variance. We thus highlight the importance
of sponsorship activities for brands and brand management.
Our model extends previous results that demonstrate the
effect of sponsorship on brand awareness, brand image, and
attitude toward the brand (e.g., Dean 1999; Lardinoit and
Derbaix 2001). In particular, we demonstrate the effect of
sponsorship on brand loyalty, which provides a key
competitive advantage, and is an ongoing managerial
challenge (Dick and Basu 1994; Fournier and Yao 1997).
However, we did not measure actual purchase behavior,
which is difficult to do when dealing with durable goods
and conducting an experiment. The loyalty measure we
employed instead is based on declarations of future
purchase behavior or repurchase intent. A confirmation of
the relationships uncovered with actual behavioral data thus
would be helpful.
Building on our preliminary results, we modeled the
process by which self-congruity with the event may affect
brand loyalty and proposed another process through which
the fit between the event and the brand may affect brand
loyalty, in line with theories about the importance of such
fit in sponsorship literature (e.g., Speed and Thompson
2000). Our model decomposed the impact of sponsorship
on brand loyalty into two main routes, each with mediating
variables. The first route refers to the impact of selfcongruity with the event on affect felt toward the event,
which in turn influences the consumers affect toward the
brand and finally drives brand loyalty through an affective
route. This process relies on consumers judgments of the
event itself (self-congruity, event affect), which then
transfer to the brand (brand affect, brand loyalty). A
second route encompasses the perceived fit between the

818

event and the brand, which positively affects brand trust

and attitude toward the sponsorship of the event by the
brand, then influences brand affect and ultimately brand
loyalty. This process involves consumers judgments of
whether the brand appears related to the event. Consideration of the brand as congruent or incongruent with a
particular event (eventbrand fit, attitude toward the
sponsorship by the brand) influences consumerbrand
relationship constructs (brand trust and brand affect)
(Fournier 1998), which in turn impact brand loyalty.
The empirical evidence of the significance of all our
hypothesized relationships clarifies the mechanisms by
which sponsorship drives brand loyalty. Some hypothesized
mediations are only partial, which should be expected in
explanations of complex constructs such as loyalty. Further
research might expand on the meanings of the unexpected
direct effects and identify omitted mediators with the same
sign as the direct effect. For example, attitude toward the
sponsorship might influence brand loyalty through brand
attributes (e.g., perceived quality, prominence) that move
beyond brand affect. Self-congruity with the event also
could influence brand affect directly, due to conformity
effects or imitation of social norms. The more a person
thinks that other members of his or her social group
appreciate the purchase of a sponsors product, the more
that consumer tends to buy the product (Madrigal 2000).
When an event fits a social ideal, the consumer thus may
exhibit greater liking of the sponsor.
The important role of brand affect, as determined both
by affect toward the event and attitude toward the
sponsorship, is another key finding of this study, in that
brand affect appears to be an important mediator between
event-related concepts and brand loyalty. The process of
pairing a conditioned stimulus (i.e., brand) with an
unconditioned stimulus that evokes favorable affective
responses (i.e., event) entails evaluative conditioning
(Sweldens et al. 2010). Attitude toward the sponsorship
positively influences brand affect through an indirect
affective response, which demands conscious awareness
of the brandevent relation. Yet a direct affective transfer
between the event and the brand also is possible, without
establishing a brandevent relation. Sponsorships, by presenting the brand and event simultaneously, could transfer affect
directly to the brand. The positive affective disposition toward
the event then could spill over to the brand, as in the case of
co-branding (Simonin and Ruth 1998).

J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2012) 40:807820

variables (brand affect, brand trust, and brand loyalty)

4 days later, reflects our effort to minimize problems linked
to common method variance or priming with possible
immediate memory effects. However, the methodology is
more quasi-experimental rather than experimental, in that
we use real stimuli (Adidas and Samsung ads) in the
context of a real event (Olympics). Therefore, some
differences across groups may emerge on variables that
we do not control (e.g., attitude toward the Olympics,
previous exposure to ads). These are the costs of realism,
but realism is key for sponsorship research.
Though our overall model fit is satisfactory, as are the
intensities of the relationships between the constructs, the
role of brand trust requires further research. Sponsorship
has a strong effect on brand trust (F=81.06, p=.000), and
the path coefficients to and from brand trust are significant,
yet the model still offers little explanation of brand trust in
itself. This limitation could reflect the nature of the two
brands we used (Adidas and Samsung), measurement
issues, or the way we modeled the role of brand trust.
Additional research should deal with this issue, as well as
adding other predictors that might increase the explained
variance of brand loyalty. Adding predictors also could
have an impact on the structural relationship we estimate.
Furthermore, this research requires replication with other
events that offer more variability in terms of prominence and
attitudes and in different settings than the French market. The
intensity of consumer exposure and the attitude toward
sponsorship activities in general and toward Olympics
sponsorship in particular may vary across countries and
cultures (Marshall and Cook 1992). Similarly, the quasiexperimental design implemented here and the use of a
convenience sample through a snowball sampling procedure
are limitations that call for replications in other conditions.
Although our research purpose is not comparative, our
results indicate that sponsorship increases brand loyalty to a
higher degree than does advertising. Very little research has
attempted such a comparative assessment, though Olson and
Thjomoe (2009) empirically offer some rules for converting
sponsorship exposure time into television advertising equivalent values. This notion suggests an interesting direction for
further research. Finally, dealing with moderating variables
of the impact of sponsorship on brand loyalty is of interest.
For example, marketing mix variables (as a premium price)
and individual consumers experience with the product may
moderate the effects found in this study.

Limitations and future research

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